Eastern to open first soccer season with women’s game in McAlester

8/18/2014

WILBURTON, OK (Aug. 18, 2014) – This week marks the beginning of a new era of Eastern Oklahoma State College athletics as the first soccer game in school history is scheduled for Saturday in McAlester.

The Eastern women will take on Coffeyville Community College at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 23 at McAlester High School in the first official game for the college’s soccer program. Eastern installed a new soccer field in Wilburton, but the unusually high rainfall in the area this summer has delayed field preparations.

“We’ve had some good, strong workouts and the team is excited to get the season started,” said Head Coach Irving Peralta. “We know we’ll have our challenges as a young team in our first year of a new program. But, we have a lot of talented players and we’re going to work hard, be competitive and position ourselves to finish strong in the conference.”

Peralta has 18 players on the women’s team and 31 players on the men’s team. While there are several players from Oklahoma, Arkansas and Texas, the teams also include international student athletes from England, Scotland, Australia, Guatemala, Chile, Ethiopia, Congo and Russia.

Both the women’s and men’s team play several games on the road before returning home to play Hill College on Tuesday, Sept. 9 in Wilburton. The women will play at 2 p.m., followed by the men at 4 p.m.